The novelist, essayist, and cultural critic Jonathan Lethem, author of the new book “Cellophane Bricks: A Life in Visual Culture” (ZE Books), discusses his passion for book dedications; the time he spent with James Brown and Bob Dylan, respectively, when profiling them for Rolling Stone in the mid-aughts; how his writing is, in part, a way of dealing with and healing from his mother’s death in 1978, at age 36; and why he views his work as “fundamentally commemorative.”

The lighting designer Lindsey Adelman discusses her recent decision to shift her company away from a large-scale production operation and toward a smaller, more intimate “studio” model; the great surprise of having one of her designs installed in Vice President Kamala Harris’s Washington, D.C., home; her love of hosting; and the various writers and artists who have helped shape her conceptions of light over the years.

The Pulitzer Prize–winning architecture critic Paul Goldberger discusses the staying power of Philip Johnson’s Glass House as it turns 75, the evolution of architecture over the past century, what he’s learned from writing architects’ obituaries, and the Oreo cookie from a design perspective.

The artist Francesco Clemente discusses collaborating with the chef Daniel Humm on the soon-to-open Clemente Bar at Eleven Madison Park, frescoes as the most luminous artistic medium, the lifelong influence of the artists Cy Twombly and Joseph Beuys on his work, his deep affinity with India, and the certain timeworn quality to his art.

Historian and author Sarah Lewis, the founder of the Vision & Justice initiative and an associate professor of the humanities and African and African-American studies at Harvard, discusses the tension between pedagogy and propaganda; the deep influence of Frederick Douglass’s 1861 “Pictures and Progress” lecture on her work; how a near-death car crash altered the course of her life and her new book, “The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America”; and the special ability of certain...

Rita Sodi, the chef-owner of I Sodi and co-owner (with her life and work partner, Jody Williams) of Via Carota, The Commerce Inn, and Bar Pisellino, discusses learning to cook from her mother, her atypical journey from fashion to food, and some of the stringent rules she follows in the kitchen and in life.

The landscape and garden designer Edwina von Gal, founder of the Perfect Earth Project, discusses the meditative qualities of gardening; the importance of forming a symbiotic relationship with land and nature; reframing landscaping as “land care”; and why she doesn’t see herself as a steward of land, but rather as a collaborator with it.

The Japanese photographer, artist, and architect Hiroshi Sugimoto discusses his pictures as fossilizations of time; seascapes as the least spoiled places on Earth; his enduring love for cooking, opera, and Japanese Noh theater; and why, for him, the “target of completion” for a building is 5,000 years from now.

The French Moroccan creative director, artist, and entrepreneur Ramdane Touhami, the creator of Hotel Drei Berge in the Swiss Alps and the co-founder of the cult grooming brand Officine Universelle Buly 1803, talks about the parallels between Japan and Switzerland, the healing power of mountains, business as a religion, and his upcoming journey from Paris to Tokyo by car along the Southern Silk Road.

“The Sympathizer” author Viet Thanh Nguyen talks about turning his Pulitzer Prize–winning 2015 novel into a new HBO miniseries of the same name, the polarities between what he calls “narrative plenitude” and “narrative scarcity,” the fickle nature of memory, America as a mythology, and jokes as a form of truth-telling.

The 97-year-old Pittsburgh-based artist and sculptor Thaddeus Mosley talks about sculpting art out of wood for seven decades straight; the language that poetry, music, and sculpture all share; his early years as a sportswriter for a local newspaper; and his enduring affinity for the work of Constantin Brâncuși and Isamu Noguchi.

The Brooklyn-based artist Adam Pendleton discusses the elusive, multifarious nature of his “Black Dada” philosophical framework; painting as a kind of technology; and why, for him, jazz is indefinable.

The British fashion legend Paul Smith talks about his deep, 40-plus-year engagement with the country of Japan, where he operates more than 150 stores; his long-view approach to building a business that transcends time; his ever-growing collection of rabbit ephemera; and the metamorphic impact of music and humor on his life and work.

The Belgium-born writer and critic Lucy Sante, author of the new book “I Heard Her Call My Name,” a memoir about her recent gender transition at age 66, discusses various out-of-body experiences and dislocations she had in her younger years, why she thinks of the 1960s as “a kind of magic time,” her life-transforming literary journey, and her decision to open the floodgates of her womanhood.

The British interior designer Ilse Crawford discusses her approach to crafting beautiful, highly original spaces that push against today’s speedy, copy-paste, Instagram-moment world; her early career in media, including as the celebrated founding editor of the U.K. edition of Elle Decoration; and her personal definition of the word “slow.”

The Italian chef Massimo Bottura, famous for his three-Michelin-starred restaurant Osteria Francescana in Modena, Italy, talks about the art of aging balsamic vinegar; his vast collection of thousands upon thousands of vinyl records; his deep love of Ferraris, Lamborghinis, and Maseratis; and how he thinks about the role of time, both literally and philosophically, in and out of the kitchen.

Curator Helen Molesworth, author of the new book “Open Questions: Thirty Years of Writing About Art,” discusses her lifelong engagement with the work of Marcel Duchamp; the transformative power of a great conversation; and the personal and professional freedom she has found in recent years as a roving, independent voice in the art world.

The architect Annabelle Selldorf, principal of the New York–based firm Selldorf Architects, talks about the links she sees between Slow Food and her architecture, the intuitive aspects of form-making, and why she considers architecture “the mother of all arts.”

The MacArthur “genius” fellow and landscape architect Walter Hood, creative director and founder of Hood Design Studio in Oakland, California, and chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning at UC Berkeley, discusses the intersection of social justice and landscape architecture, his arguments against what we traditionally deem “memorials” or “monuments,” and the power of language to literally shape the world around us.

Min Jin Lee, the author of the bestselling novels “Free Food for Millionaires” and “Pachinko,” talks about the complex role of time in the latter book, her miraculous recovery from chronic liver disease, and why she likens short-story writing to polishing diamonds.

The architect and furniture maker Mira Nakashima talks about her family’s time spent in a Japanese internment camp during World War II; the enduring “karma yoga” influence of the Indian philosopher and spiritual leader Sri Aurobindo, whom her father, George Nakashima, once studied under and worked for as an architect; and why her father considered his work “an antidote to the modern world.”

On this episode—our 100th—hospitality impresario and Studio 54 co-founder Ian Schrager discusses his tried-and-true design philosophies and definition of luxury today; his admiration for the visionary thinking of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Walt Disney; and the enduring aura of Studio 54.